UPDATE: Nikki Finke has yet again been forced into the role of Debbie Downer to announce that Sam Raimi has parted ways with Spider-Man 4, taking his cast and crew with him. Sony will now reboot the franchise with a new director and cast. And yes, I did say reboot. Sorry Dylan Baker. But now, seriously, Darkman 2.
ORIGINAL POST:
Nikki Finke’s story of Spider-Man 4’s production shutdown instantly brought to mind the creative battles that plagued Spider-Man 3 during its pre-production. It’s a well-known fact that director Sam Raimi had intended Spider-Man 3’s villains to be Sandman and The Vulture. However, the studio and producers leaned on him to jettison The Vulture in favor of fan-demanded Venom. The producers won, and Spider-Man 3 was worse for it.
Reports have recently leaked that Sony has temporarily halted production on Spider-Man 4 for the same reasons. Again, Raimi wants to use The Vulture, and again, Sony wants the villain flavor-of-the-month (which is who? Carnage? Mysterio? Anti-Venom?). It remains to be seen if this song is going to end the same way, or if Raimi will stick around to direct another villain he doesn’t care about.
Instead of wasting time with Sony, Raimi should maybe think about returning to his other superhero franchise. The one he created in 1990 for Universal: Darkman. True, Universal made two direct-to-video (graveyard) sequels starring future-Mummy Arnold Vosloo. But the time has never been better for comic book re-imaginings. Hulk was ready to go after a five year slumber; Batman after seven years.
Here are a couple of reasons why Raimi may want to trade Peter Parker for Peyton Westlake:
1. Everyone’s Much More Famous:
Darkman was originally made for pennies, starring a nobody, and directed by a cult horror movie director. Now that nobody star is Liam Neeson, and that cult director is the “Director of Spider-Man.” Those two marketing tools alone would mean a bigger budget and wider distribution. It’s also worth noting that Darkman and Spider-Man 2 shared the same Director of Photography (Bill Pope) and composer (Danny Elfman). Plus, if you’ve seen Taken, Liam Neeson can still kick a lot of ass.
2. No source material to hate:
Part of the problem with adapting comic books is deciding whether to pull from the comics, create something new, or a little of both. Raimi came under fire for replacing Gwen Stacy with MJ for the iconic Green Goblin bridge battle in the first Spider-Man, as did Brett Ratner for attempting to use elements of Days of the Future Past and the Dark Phoenix Saga in X3. Darkman has no such baggage, and like Robocop, can greet audiences on relatively new ground — keeping pre-release internet hate to a minimum.
3. It’s going to be remade anyhow:
You know this to be true. Hollywood loves itself a remake, and it’s only a matter of time before Universal cracks open that vault to see what else it can add to The Wolfman to fill out its inevitable “Universal Remake” 3 DVD box set. I’d rather Raimi and Neeson reunite and continue what they started.
So as Mr. Raimi finds himself in the same position that he was in on the eve of Spider-Man 3, maybe he should ditch the spider and consider returning to his other superhero franchise to help Peyton Westlake fire up a few new masks.
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